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Superteles should have been excluded, those really are coming down in weight thanks to advances in optics as well as higher ISO & image stabilization allowing s
by ip26 8y ago
Superteles should have been excluded, those really are coming down in weight thanks to advances in optics as well as higher ISO & image stabilization allowing slower glass. Just look at the outlier "max" cases in the charts, and draw the trendline in your mind.
- ghaff 8y agoFor the serious full-time pro shooting nature, sports, etc. "the best" may still make sense. But with modern full-frame digital sensors, it gets increasingly hard to justify thousands of dollars and pounds of weight for an f-stop. It made a lot more sense when you were maxed out at ISO 25-50 for the best color film quality and somewhere around ISO 200 tops for most pro purposes. Even if money is no object, just the weight and bulk isn't worth it for a lot of circumstances even if you can get a tad better depth-of-field isolation.
- ip26 8y agoFor superteles, f-stops matter because of shutter speed, and increasingly, autofocus performance. It's a unique portion of the photography world, to be sure, but you don't have to be a pro to see real material benefit from an additional f-stop. Sneaking through the jungle near dusk, shooting 800mm f/8 handheld on a crop body, there's not much I wouldn't do for an extra stop.
- ghaff 8y agoI probably shouldn't have drawn a distinction between full-time pros and very serious amateurs in the ultra-tele niche. And that's absolutely a fair point about autofocus especially at the highest focal lengths. But obviously 800mm lenses are already pretty niche.
- ip26 8y ago400mm + 2x isn't that niche :)